More from “Urinetown” writer Greg Kotis

"Urinetown" creators Greg Kotis, left, and Mark Hollmann talk Tuesday at a college theater festival. Times photo by Ron Schloerb.

Former Wellfleet resident Greg Kotis holds a quirky place in American theater history, and he and writing partner Mark Hollmann offered an engaging and energizing start Tuesday to the first regional arm of the Kennedy Center American College Theater Festival to ever be held on Cape Cod.

They are the creators of the 2001 Tony Award-winning musical “Urinetown,” a satirical comedy about government, corporations and pay toilets that Kotis said, in a short interview after the talk, has become a favorite show on college campuses. He believed that was the reason he and Hollmann were asked to be keynote speakers to kick off the five-day festival rather than that he happens to be a Nauset Regional High School graduate (and regular Wellfleet summer visitor). And their story had much to say to the college students that nearly filled the Grand Ballroom at the Resort & Conference Center at Hyannis. (The two were also due to talk last night to smaller groups of playwrights and musical-theater students.)

The festival offers packed schedules of performances, workshops, talks and other events through Saturday night at Cape Cod Community College (the host school), at the conference center and at Barnstable High School. All of that is open to the general public, too. The majority of the audience is college students from all over New England and eastern New York, though, and their response Tuesday to hearing about the improbable success of “Urinetown” was enthusiastic and warm. (Also spotted in the audience were Janine Perry and Vicki Summers from Cape Rep Theatre in Brewster, which produced “Urinetown” in 2005.)

Some highlights of the interview with Kotis (book and lyrics for “Urinetown”) and Hollmann (music and lyrics) by Ralph Sevush of The Dramatists Guild of America that I couldn’t fit into the story in today’s print Times:

– “Urinetown” was nominated for 10 Tony Awards in 2002, and won three, including for book and score by Kotis and Hollmann. It ran on Broadway for nearly 1,000 performances and has since been produced all around the world.

– Kotis acted on Cape Cod, including in shows like “West Side Story” at Nauset (from which he graduated in 1984) and at the Academy of Performing Arts in Orleans. But he thought plays were something you acted in; it only occurred to him that writing them could be a career after taking a class at the University of Chicago. Hollmann planned to be a lawyer until he also got involved in theater while at college, and the two met doing improvisational theater while in Chicago.

– Kotis was on an invited trip to perform in Transylvania with the Neo-Futurists group when he stopped for a time in Paris. He soon realized he hadn’t brought enough money and had to ration the number of times he was able to use the pay toilets set up around the city. Not being able to have ready access to a bathroom gave him the idea for “Urinetown,” in which toilets are controlled by government and big corporations. When Kotis pitched the idea to Hollmann in New York, he wasn’t overly surprised by the odd subject matter because that was the type of sketches the two did while in Chicago. “We were always writing stuff about a world that was a little cockeyed, that something was a little wrong,” Hollmann said.

– Kotis wasn’t a big fan of musicals until he started working with Hollmann, who always loved the form. The composer acknowledges a love/hate relationship with musicals in “Urinetown,” though, because it satirizes other shows as well as topical subjects and is influenced by “Threepenny Opera” and “The Cradle Will Rock.”

– Working in odd places between other jobs, the pair finally had a draft in 1998 and sent the idea to about 60 agents and about 60 theaters. Only Trinity Rep in Providence came close to producing it. Coming from a tradition of storefront theater, they had a reading in 1999 and then decided to pitch the musical to the then-fledgling New York International Fringe Festival because Kotis knew someone involved there.

– Kotis mentioned luck and fate several times in his talk, and how “Urinetown” moved beyond the fringe festival to Tony Awards on Broadway (the only musical to ever have such success) was a case in point. They knew playwright David Auburn (“Proof”), who saw the show and mentioned it to producers; the play was extended a week because the venue was otherwise dark, so the producers ended up having a chance to see the show. “Urinetown” was moved to off-Broadway; because of enough good buzz and a flattering New York Times review, the decision was made to move to Broadway.

– “Urinetown” was in previews, and due to open on Sept. 13, 2001, but then 9/11 happened. Broadway went dark for two days, then reopened in a defiant gesture when people still thought more bombs were coming. Kotis credits people’s defiant goal to live normally during those times, the good will of visitors for New York, and how the subject matter of the musical resonated when the U.S. had been under attack, with some of the show’s success.

– Only one line was cut post-9/11: When someone describes a character being thrown off a building, it was noted that “he hit the ground like a bag of beef.” That line sounded completely different after the destruction of the Twin Towers and was dropped.

– Kotis and Hollmann told the students Tuesday that collaboration is key on any level of theater, and writers have to trust directors and designers when they finally step back from their work. (Some theaters producing “Urinetown,” though, have had to deal with lawsuits from the Broadway director and designers who believed certain ideas were their property…)

– The writers have seen “Urinetown” produced in places like Germany and Tokyo. The latter was the oddest because of the different way Japanese theater is produced and because the character of Old Man Strong, originally imagined as a “Grapes of Wrath” type figure, ended up being dressed in an adult diaper and a Viking hat.

– Kotis acknowledged to the budding theater artists that it’s difficult to make a living in theater, that even after success on Broadway, it’s hard to get a show produced. Most shows fail financially, he said. “Theaters continue to fight for the audience and we’re selling a specific kind of goofball, gonzo theater. The great musicals have been written – they were written 40 years ago and how do you make a musical relevant?”

– Kotis and Hollmann have been trying to get their musical “Yeast Nation,” about yeasts trying to survive in the primordial goo, produced on a wider scale and, after sell-out crowds at the 2011 fringe festival, still believe that will happen. But it isn’t easy. Kotis noted all theaters are trying to get people away from their computers, but he still thinks audiences can be lured by “the live element, things can and probably will go wrong in front of you. There’s an energy in the room that can’t be replicated on a computer or even in a movie theater.”

– The writers recommended getting work in front of an audience as much as possible, using audience reaction to performance rather than the written page to shape a piece. The people you work with are also key and “there’s no right or wrong way to make plays,” Kotis said.

– The next project for the “Urinetown” team: They’re close to finishing a first draft on a “Gothic operatic comic romp” that is a zombie musical. “We know these are things that can take years and years,” Kotis said when asked about any specific plans for producing that show. “There are no guarantees, no promises, other than to have fun. … We have no plans, except that we’re convinced it’s going to be great.”

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